The average selling price of a Mac increased 5.71% over the last two quarters. If we apply that growth rate to NPD’s data that says the ASP of a PC was $615 in November, then the ASP of a PC today is $650.12. Multiply that number by an 8% profit margin and HP makes $52.00 for every PC they sell.Apple makes more money from the sale of one Mac than HP does from selling seven PCs.

I didn’t think it was quite that much. But Damn! That is a real profit margin.

Guest

I might not be thinking about this right, but shouldn’t Microsoft’s profit be added to the HP margin? After all, Apple sells software and hardware together, so unless these are segmented financials for the hardware and OS, this is a misrepresentation.

how is Microsoft profit related to hp at all? that doesn’t make any sense.

Guest

HP selling a device for 650 or whatever includes the Microsoft license. They are selling a bundle of software and hardware, but they are only realizing a profit on the hardware, while Microsoft realizes the profit on the software. Apple sells a bundle and realizes the profit on both. But the headline makes sense in that HP has to sell a lot more computers to make as much money as Apple, but my claim is that they do so because they only sell hardware, while Apple sells hardware and software in each transaction.

Direwulf

You are right that the headline is not comparing apples to apples, however the $650 selling price from HP includes all of the margin Microsoft makes off of the sale. So it would be more accurate to say that Apple makes more than both HP and Microsoft on a per unit basis, however you could then apply that to any of the hardware or software component providers.

Fbendotti

Idiots that are willing to pay the Apple tax keep lining Steve job’s pockets with gold. I have four computers at home, 1 desktop,and 3 laptops total cost < 1500. All of them work just fine and have pretty nice hardware. If they were all Apple products, I would only have 1. No, I am not anti-Apple, I just anti-Apple price.

Good for you. Most non-über-geek consumers who buy cheap Windows computers incur a higher cost of ownership over the life of those machines. More and more of them are turning to Apple hardware for ease of use, higher build quality, longer useful life, and decidedly lower costs for annual malware removal.

To each his own. Choice is good. Thanks for calling people you don’t know “idiots.”

Anonymous

that’s like saying ‘yeah I’ve got four kia’s at home. they all work pretty fine. if they were all bmw’s, i’d have only one.’ good for you. you bought a shell of a computer. you get what you pay for and unfortunately for you, you bought 4 kia’s.